“M’sieur gives no card?” he inquired, with a quick, interrogative look of suspicion.
“No,” I answered.
He led me across the hall wherein hung an elaborate Russian ikon, down one long well-carpeted corridor and then along another, at last ushering me into a great apartment resplendent with mirrors, statuary and gilt furniture, the latter bearing embroidered upon the crimson backs of the chairs her monogram, “EN”, surmounted by a Russian coronet. In the costly inlaid cabinets were arranged many pieces of priceless china, the carpet was of rich turquoise blue, the tables of ebony were inlaid with silver, and over all electric lamps, dotted here and there, shaded by coral silk, shed a warm, subdued light. Near the four long windows that occupied one end of the great room was a grand piano, upon which two photographs in ormolu frames stood conspicuously. I crossed to look at them and discovered that one was my own, that she had evidently taken with her when she had so suddenly left my house, and the other a portrait of the man who had betrayed me—Dudley Ogle.
Slowly my eyes wandered around the elegant apartment, unable to realise that this handsome, luxurious abode could actually be my wife’s home. How mean and paltry indeed must our small drawing-room in Phillimore Gardens have appeared to her after all this stately magnificence and rigid etiquette. As I passed through the great mansion, one of the largest private residences in Paris, my nostrils had been greeted by the subtle odours of exotics, and upon my ears there had fallen the strains of an orchestra somewhere in the opposite wing of the building. Guests were evidently not shown to the side of the house where I had been conducted, for not a sound penetrated there. All was quiet, peaceful and stately.
Suddenly, just as I bent to more closely examine Dudley’s portrait, and had distinguished that it was a copy similar to the one I had seen in Sonia’s possession, the door was thrown wide-open by a tall, liveried servant, who entered, and, bowing low, announced in stentorian tones,—“Her Imperial Highness Elizaveta Nicolayevna.”
The rapid frou-frou of silk sounded outside, and next second my wife and I stood face to face.
In an instant the colour left her cheeks. She staggered as if she had been dealt a blow, but managing to regain her self-possession, she turned quickly to the servant, and in a frigid tone said,—
“Go, Anton. And see that I am not disturbed.”
The man, glancing at me for a moment in unfeigned surprise, bowed, and withdrew in silence.
I stood motionless, gazing upon her, noting the beauty of her costume, the brilliance of her diamonds, and the deathly pallor of her adorable face.